Two weeks and counting...

Crazy! Fifteen days until this little guy is due. Really hard to believe. We're finally doing our best to get ready for his arrival - funny how it's a little more "laid back" after the first one. We know that life will be seeing a lot of changes over the next few weeks... and months. So we're trying to relax a bit before the chaos begins... but we welcome the chaos and are quite excited. Until then, here are so pics of our recent adventures:

Yes - a prego belly picture! They are few and far between. Probably about 33 weeks or so in this one. We enjoyed a great hike up to a little lake whose name I am totally spacing at the moment. But it was pretty!

Our little fireman - sans pants. James LOVES to play fireman and is usually found sporting this hat and boots combo - sometimes with pants, sometimes without. Regardless, he's irresistible.

Enjoying the remains of Mama's hot chocolate - which she consumes about once a day... sometimes twice. I'd like to blame it on pregnancy... so I'm going to.

And here's the little man eating Daddy's cereal. He literally plopped down on Daddy's lap, grabbed the spoon and chowed down. Daddy was nice enough to share.

Me and my favorite little James.

Sitting in a "firetruck" that Daddy constructed.

Pumpkins! After having James tell us what shapes he wanted to use for his pumpkins lovely features, he got to paint it. I'm loving this little artists concentration.

Helping Daddy dig out the "gooey stuff"... yes, while wearing his fireman hat & boots - what else would he wear?

One of the fabulous pumpkins. The other one looked a little scary.

And then...

FIREMAN JAMES!!!

This is not a good picture, but sadly the best we have.

Reid and I were ridiculous and searched high and low for a cool fireman outfit. Yes, we broke down and ordered one - but it's so worth it. The kid has his clothes picked out for the next six months - fireman pants and fireman coat. Seriously, he's worn this many, many times. I love it because it always makes someone smile when they see this little fireman tromping through a store. And - he won the costume contest at a friends halloween party. He's the cutest fireman I've ever seen.

We'll be back in a few weeks with pictures of the newest baby Phelps!

Keep us in your prayers! Thanks!

Times Flies When Your Son is Two!

Wow... it's September?! Time is just flying by! It's crazy how fast this second pregnancy has progressed - you just don't have as much time to dwell on that growing belly when you have two-year-old to chase around! As of today, I'm 27 weeks! Crazy that in about 3 months our little boy will be here - we can't wait to meet him! I've been feeling great and loving being pregnant!

And, it's official... I'm 30! And I'm lovin' it. My boys did a great job of loving on me for my birthday. We took a great hike in the morning, after Reid made me a pancake breakfast, and just enjoyed a great day together. Reid took me out for an amazing dinner (Frida Bistro... you must go) and I spent the day just feeling loved.

The Birthday Girl!

Daddy & James - it's a good thing Daddy's so strong.

There's no way Mama could carry both her boys!

Hiking with Mama.

My boys.

Me and my James... who is more interested in throwing rocks in the water.

Yes, we're teaching James the wonderful ways of the "self-take"

... we did pretty well!

James, Daddy & the birthday frog (which, sad to say, has run out of batteries) singing me "Happy Birthday"... really, very precious.

And how funny is this guy? He was out back playing with the Daddy and the hose and apparently the hose got the best of him. He was tough though... didn't shed a tear when the water attacked him. In fact, I'd say he looks pretty pleased with himself.

More prego picks to come soon! We just need to take more!

Poor 2nd child... he already has fewer pictures!

Our Sweet Blaze

Blaze

James snuggling with "My Blazer".

So happy after a hike with Mom and Dad.

Snuggling on his giant bed.

With Dad in Montana.

Blaze and Kaya.

We are so sad to have to say "goodbye" to our sweet Blaze. It was just such a surprise. Yes, he was our old man, but I think we believed he would live forever. He leaves us with wonderful memories... hikes, camping, road trips, always wanting to be touched, his sweet demeanor, his habit of head-butting as a greeting and sign of love, his awful drool that would at times get wrapped around and around and around his nose, his right paw - always reaching out to say 'hello' and 'thank you for loving on me', his head rolling over your leg as you gently pet him, his willingness to let James roll all over him, pull on him, push him and - all the while - wagging his tail because he knew it was a sign of love, his loud wagging tail (so loud it would actually wake me in the middle of the night), his loud, loud snoring (see previous note again), his ability to drink water so loudly that we would actually have to pause movies and wait for him to finish because we couldn't hear over his lapping, his soft fur, his cuddling, the fur around his neck that you'd just want to snuggle into, his sweet eyes that would look into you and speak his love, his loud, annoying bark, the fact that he was such a wimp - literally a cup falling over would terrify him - he would "jump" up as fast as he could, paw at the ground until he got his footing and "quickly" walk away in fear, the same response would occur at the sound of a pan being set down too loudly, the doorbell, pulling a chair out too quickly and so on. He had the spark of a puppy at times - playing ball and lunging after his other puppy friends. His spark would last a couple minutes and then he would go back to sauntering through the yard and peeing on everything. His amazing quantity of hair - it would have broken world records if that were at all a competition. His love of being brushed - splayed out and totally relaxed, laying in the middle of the grass, in a pool of his own brushed blonde hair. His inability (or unwillingness, I believe) to "load up" into the back of the car - I think he just didn't want to put forth the effort. His love of going on walks - he would be so excited for the first half a block and then so tired by the time we got home... poor guy. He disgusting hacking noise. His "indoor voice". The way his eyes would cross when we'd put a treat on his nose and he'd have to wait to flip it up and eat it. The way drool would just fall out of his mouth when we was given a treat. The way his whole body would shake and wiggle when he was excited to see. you His uncanny ability to always be in just the wrong place - tripping over a giant dog is not a good thing. His love of laying on the landing of the stairs - again, tripping over a dog - not good - tripping over a dog on the stairs - really not good. His begging. His enormous bed. His enormous head. His enormous body. His enormous, huge, too big for this world, heart. We don't know if all dogs go to heaven, but we know this one is there. He was just too good, too sweet, too full of love.

We miss you, our sweet Blaze, our old man, our Blazer, our Blazer Bean, our Bubba... rest peacefully, sweet dog. Lay in the sun. Eat all you want. Wag that tail in pure joy. Know that you are missed. Know that you are loved. We love you, Blazer. We love you.

Baby Boy Phelps!

We'll we're pretty sure we're being blessed with another little boy! We have another ultrasound this Thursday and we're pretty sure our initial beliefs will be confirmed... we both saw "boy" on the last ultrasound. We decided to take James with us to the last appointment and he did great. When the PA did the ultrasound, James said, "Look, it's a fishy! Like the aquarium!" Too cute. So, since we're nameless at the moment, we're going with "Baby Nemo" until otherwise stated.

Things are going great. I'll be 19 weeks this Thursday. I did have some sickness in the earlier weeks and was tried and hungry, but most of that has passed - except the hungry part... always hungry.

So, the countdown is on! It's crazy to me to think that "only" 150 days from now we'll be a family of four! So excited to meet this new little person. I'll keep you updated. Promise... I'm going to be better about it :)

"Going up to heaven..."

So, James was playing by himself in his room and I went in to play with him. I noticed that he had been building a lego tower, so I said, "James, did you build a tower?" His answer was, "Going up to heaven!" I melted! You see - we've been reading his storybook Bible a lot and one of the stories we read is the Tower of Babel. What an amazing little guy. He remembered the story and understood they were building a tower up to heaven! So, I did what any mom would do - I grabbed the video camera. It's not as candid as the first one, and I had to kind of coax him into saying it again, but it's still really cute. I didn't cut it or anything, so sorry about the couple twists and turns... enjoy!

Our Pretty Cabinets!

Well, we've decided to do some "remodeling" in order to put our house on the market this May. We're trying to think ahead with the potential move next year - so that means trying to sell our house maybe sooner than later.

One of the biggest tasks we undertook was painting our oak kitchen cabinets. If you're considering taking on this task, I won't recommend it...it's too much work. But, the result is really awesome. We're super happy with our new cream colored oak cabinets... (and we owe a super big thanks to my parents for their help!)

The before picture isn't the best...we were half way through removing the doors

to sand them before I thought to grab the camera.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Pretty... isn't it?

So, say some prayers for us. We're hoping this whole house selling thing
isn't a super painful process. Thanks!

Yummy Snow

Our little family at Kevin & Casey's wedding. This is James' current photo smile.

We've had moments of snow this winter - and James had enjoyed playing in... I mean...

eating the snow when it's available. He's a funny kid. Especially this particular day...

First, he'd pick up a handful of snow and give it a try,

and slowly, slowly, he moved closer to the snow...

Yes - he's actually laying on the snow at this point...

Now he's really getting in there.

Look! A giant chuck on snow! Yummy.

All gone!

Eww...

Ok - maybe eating snow isn't the best idea after all.

Silly James.

The Most Wonderful (& Busiest) Time of the Year!

OOPS!!! I just found this post that I never actually posted... my bad.

So, I'm going to throw it up here anyway and then move on...

Check out the Shutterfly page for more pics!

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to an exciting New Year! We have been to Colorado for Christmas, New Orleans for a wedding, we've survived a week of being sick and we're almost back to "normal".

It has been a whirlwind for us during the last 4 weeks. We have had a lot of fun (except for the getting sick part). Colorado was wonderful. We were able to spend some quality time with Reid's family (Mimi, Pa, Uncle Jason, Great Grandma and Great Popper as they are all know these days). We spent a couple days in Breckenridge at Reid's parents place, then we headed down to Colorado Springs for a full and fun Christmas: Christmas Eve with the Sprehe's, Christmas morning with the Phelps', back down to the Sprehe's, then back to the Phelps' for a Christmas dinner with both our families. Whew! It was a lot of fun, but a very tiring couple days. Our parents did a great job of doing what they do best - spoiling James. He was really excited about opening presents, but was a little worn out by the end of the day. He now has a lot of new goodies!

SKIING!!! James loved it!

James & Daddy Christmas morning!